Francis Darroze 1996 Domaine de Rieston 27yr Armagnac 750ml

The Darroze house began with Jean Darroze's restaurant in Villeneuve-de-Marsan, where a passion for Gascon cuisine and its accompanying eaux-de-vie was passed down to his son Francis. Starting in the late 1960s, Francis began seeking out, aging, and bottling exceptional finds from individual estates, treating Armagnac the way a winemaker treats a single vineyard, with no blending across domaines or vintages and no dilution of the natural strength. That founding philosophy still guides the house today under Marc Darroze, with each release aged in its own dedicated barrel and labeled by estate, vintage, and bottling date.

This bottling is drawn entirely from Domaine de Rieston, an estate at the heart of the unofficial Grand Bas-Armagnac, farmed and distilled by Monsieur Deyres using a continuous still. The eau-de-vie is composed of Baco, Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, and Colombard, and spent twenty-seven years resting in oak before bottling, developing an amber color with golden highlights over that long maturation.

The nose combines honey and jammy dark fruit with classic baco notes of prune, licorice, and leather, joined by coffee and dark tobacco. On the palate, powerful aromatics and firm tannins carry through to a long, resonant finish marked by clove and toasted spice.